kingogre,
if the police had a mandate to search your house and you didn't allow them to search specific rooms, would the police just say good-bye and go away just because, well, you may think differently from most citizens and because your pride may have been hurt? If the police was so "sensitive to people's moods" no criminal would be caught, no evidence found.
Also, is 12 years a short waiting?
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I agree pretty much with what you said. I never know what is going on in my wifes head let alone Sadams.
You said the USA did not want the inspectors to have more time and so went ahead with the war anyway. Are you saying that Sadam finally agreed to allow them in? After 12 years of playing with inspectors (12 years not weeks) and two pretty serious ultimatums how much longer would you have given him to decide? 3 months? 20 years?
If YOU are charged with protecting a country and do not have the luxury of hindsight and THINK Sadam MAY have wmd,s he might sell or give to someone, it,s a mighty big chance to take.
I would bet that the people who despise him so much now would be the first to hate him all over again if he did nothing and we were hit big-time by gas or some organism dropped into times square on new years eve that made it,s way from north Africa. Look at how much stuff Libya had and gave up.
The cry would be " Bush, you thought he may have had wmd, and you did nothing you bastard and now people are dead". You know this would be true.
I saw the same thing with Clinton. Poor guy was gret but in the eyes of some could not do a thing right. One indescretion ( well he was only caught once) and he was crucified.
I don,t know that Sadam thought war was inevitable either. That saviour to all the worlds problems (per Gore and Kerry) the UN were on the take for 12 years and many of them got very rich thanks to Sadam. Iraq may have have gotten word from many of these guys that he was safe and the UN would never sanction an attack and the US under world pressure would not back the threats. He also wanted to save face I am sure and so he put civilians and children around military targets. Nice.
Sadam is no victim here. The Iraqi people are t not rising up to kick out the troops, though the sooner we leave the better. They know they will be better off in the long run, and they know these people causing all the misery over there are for the most part, NON-IRAQI.
The biggest threat for guys like Syria is that their people want the same freedoms as the Iraqis are working for. If they can make it fail in Iraq, they too are safer. The world I think has a responsibility to not allow that to happen.
Cheers
You said the USA did not want the inspectors to have more time and so went ahead with the war anyway. Are you saying that Sadam finally agreed to allow them in? After 12 years of playing with inspectors (12 years not weeks) and two pretty serious ultimatums how much longer would you have given him to decide? 3 months? 20 years?
If YOU are charged with protecting a country and do not have the luxury of hindsight and THINK Sadam MAY have wmd,s he might sell or give to someone, it,s a mighty big chance to take.
I would bet that the people who despise him so much now would be the first to hate him all over again if he did nothing and we were hit big-time by gas or some organism dropped into times square on new years eve that made it,s way from north Africa. Look at how much stuff Libya had and gave up.
The cry would be " Bush, you thought he may have had wmd, and you did nothing you bastard and now people are dead". You know this would be true.
I saw the same thing with Clinton. Poor guy was gret but in the eyes of some could not do a thing right. One indescretion ( well he was only caught once) and he was crucified.
I don,t know that Sadam thought war was inevitable either. That saviour to all the worlds problems (per Gore and Kerry) the UN were on the take for 12 years and many of them got very rich thanks to Sadam. Iraq may have have gotten word from many of these guys that he was safe and the UN would never sanction an attack and the US under world pressure would not back the threats. He also wanted to save face I am sure and so he put civilians and children around military targets. Nice.
Sadam is no victim here. The Iraqi people are t not rising up to kick out the troops, though the sooner we leave the better. They know they will be better off in the long run, and they know these people causing all the misery over there are for the most part, NON-IRAQI.
The biggest threat for guys like Syria is that their people want the same freedoms as the Iraqis are working for. If they can make it fail in Iraq, they too are safer. The world I think has a responsibility to not allow that to happen.
Cheers
Fairy, im nor sure that I understand what you are asking completely, but I will try and make my point a bit clearer.:)
First of all I was not in any way trying to defend how Saddam acted only saying that it is hard to understand how a person like he(tyrant, dictator, psycopath whatever) reasons because he doesnt think or act like other people do.
All of what I described happened within the months before the war. Since what and why it happened is very complex off course it wasnt exactly as I described it.
After the Gulf war the Iraqi military capacity was cut and the factories and storerooms for wmd that Iraq had previously were put out of use, destroyed and monitored. Many of the people that were involved in this work said clearly when the second inspections began in 2002 that it was highly unlikely that Iraq had developed new weapons or that there were any left.
Eventually the inspectors would have had access to all the areas, the Iraqi government was not very cooperative with the inspectors though. That is probably why the inspectors wanted more time for the investigation. One reason for the uncooperativeness could have been that the Iraqi officials thought that the inspectors were spying on their defence secrets to give information to the Americans that they would use in the war that they thought would come anyway.
Still, however, one gets the feeling that the wether saddam had weapons of mass destruction was only one of the reasons for the war. The oil is always a major cause for the western involvement in the middle east. There were perhaps personal feelings since it is said that Saddam once wanted to murder George Bush senior. Perhaps George W. wanted to finish the job(removing Saddam) that his dad couldnt in the Gulf war.
But I dont think anyone will know for sure what happened and why in a very long time.
I feel that we are straying a bit from topic though...;)
First of all I was not in any way trying to defend how Saddam acted only saying that it is hard to understand how a person like he(tyrant, dictator, psycopath whatever) reasons because he doesnt think or act like other people do.
All of what I described happened within the months before the war. Since what and why it happened is very complex off course it wasnt exactly as I described it.
After the Gulf war the Iraqi military capacity was cut and the factories and storerooms for wmd that Iraq had previously were put out of use, destroyed and monitored. Many of the people that were involved in this work said clearly when the second inspections began in 2002 that it was highly unlikely that Iraq had developed new weapons or that there were any left.
Eventually the inspectors would have had access to all the areas, the Iraqi government was not very cooperative with the inspectors though. That is probably why the inspectors wanted more time for the investigation. One reason for the uncooperativeness could have been that the Iraqi officials thought that the inspectors were spying on their defence secrets to give information to the Americans that they would use in the war that they thought would come anyway.
Still, however, one gets the feeling that the wether saddam had weapons of mass destruction was only one of the reasons for the war. The oil is always a major cause for the western involvement in the middle east. There were perhaps personal feelings since it is said that Saddam once wanted to murder George Bush senior. Perhaps George W. wanted to finish the job(removing Saddam) that his dad couldnt in the Gulf war.
But I dont think anyone will know for sure what happened and why in a very long time.
I feel that we are straying a bit from topic though...;)
coops, you have many good points and I agree with you.The question of Iraq is very hard to solve and it is hard to say what is right or wrong.
It was no doubt right to get rid of Saddam, but was it right to violate the United Nations and international law when they did it. Could it have been handled better to avoid what is happening now? (It can easily seem that the american government werent really prepared that many people, and not only extremists and terrorists, in Iraq would see the americans as occupiers and not as liberators.)
What should be done now, should they leave should they say? etc.
It is hard to say that anyone is the bad guy(except for some people and organisations though) and anyone is the good guy really.
The whole situation is really very much of a catch 22. What I think we all can agree on here is that what the Iraqi people deserve is to live in peace and have freedom and democracy. It would be the best thing that has ever happened for this entire region IMO and there is a chance for that to happen now that Saddam is gone.
Cheers
It was no doubt right to get rid of Saddam, but was it right to violate the United Nations and international law when they did it. Could it have been handled better to avoid what is happening now? (It can easily seem that the american government werent really prepared that many people, and not only extremists and terrorists, in Iraq would see the americans as occupiers and not as liberators.)
What should be done now, should they leave should they say? etc.
It is hard to say that anyone is the bad guy(except for some people and organisations though) and anyone is the good guy really.
The whole situation is really very much of a catch 22. What I think we all can agree on here is that what the Iraqi people deserve is to live in peace and have freedom and democracy. It would be the best thing that has ever happened for this entire region IMO and there is a chance for that to happen now that Saddam is gone.
Cheers